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Sigrid saw Nate was aware of his surroundings once more, so she flew past, directing her course towards the spot she’d last seen the demons patrolling the sky.
Their attack came from both sides but did not catch her unaware as they’d planned. She deflected the spear thrust from her left with her shield and knocked the one from her right with her own spear as she sliced the demon’s throat with its tip. It squealed and fled as Sigrid switched weapons to her sword to cut through her left opponent’s second spear thrust.
It shrieked its rage as it switched to a sword as well. Sigrid was impressed with the savagery of its swordplay, which barely managed to keep her blade at bay. A black streak shot past her back, and she bashed the sword-bearing demon back with her shield as she spun to face the second opponent, but the demon Nate had struck on his way by no longer had a head. She saw it tumbling to the ground as its body followed. She immediately reengaged with her other opponent and sliced through its arm, and gutted it on the return stroke. She listened to its death rattle as she scanned the sky for her next target. She could no longer see Nate, but she saw the Silver Soldiers begin to move onto the office tower’s roof. She flew over to land next to them and put her weapons and wings away.
Mick approached her. “You’re an Angel?” she asked with a trembling voice.
Sigrid smiled. “Thank you, but no. I’m a Valkyrie.”
“They’re the same thing to me,” Yablonski said with awe.
One of the Silver Soldiers raced away to check for an entrance. He returned immediately. “There’s a big set of doors around the corner, but it looks like someone busted through the flankers instead.
Sigrid smiled. “The doors are likely boobytrapped. Smart, Henry.”
She turned to the gap in the roof and helped the soldiers lift the others up onto the roof. She glanced out into the darkness around the building, but Nate was nowhere to be seen. She owed him for taking out that demon sneaking up on her. She hoped he was all right.
-=-
Nate was on his knees on the next building’s roof, dry heaving over the gravel surface. Nausea, cramps, and dread filled him, but nothing was coming out.
When he’d spotted the demon gliding up to Sigrid’s back as she battled another, he knew he had to act. He was above them, so he beat his wings hard to go into a dive and snapped them in tight at the last second as he drew Mab’s dagger. He slashed at the demon’s neck and was surprised to see he’d cut the head cleanly from its body.
Opening his wings again, he took the strain to swing back up into the air and land on the neighboring roof, a good twenty stories higher than the office tower hosting Mab’s castle.
The moment his feet touched the surface, the cursed blade released the life force it had ripped from the demon into Nate.
He was immediately overwhelmed by a barrage of sickening sensations assailing his sense of taste, smell, and touch. It felt like he’d been kicked into a city’s human waste treatment tank with a few dozen bloated corpses thrown in to spice it up. He dropped forward onto his hands and knees and heaved but gained no relief.
When he finally got control once more, he looked at the dagger resting on the stones like it was a viper about to strike. He didn’t want to pick it up again, but he knew he had to save Henry from Mab.
Thoughts of the evil Queen caused a surge of rage to flash through his mind. He needed to kill that bitch! He glanced down and saw the dagger was in his hand once more. He vowed not to put it down until it had sucked the life from her body. He didn’t even pause to wonder at his rapid change of heart regarding the dagger or the intensity of his need for vengeance.
He leapt off the roof, a new eagerness coursing through him and a feeling of power he hadn’t experienced before. It felt good, which was a relief after feeling so awful.
Nate looked forward to the joy he’d feel once Mab was dead.
-=-
Roy was staring at a dead body, the first casualty in their assault of Mab’s castle. It had a devastating effect on the upbeat attitudes of the Silver Soldiers as it was one of theirs.
Once they were all inside the building, Specialist Green had run forward to do a quick check on the ground floor level and hadn’t returned. The castle wasn’t that large, so he should have returned instantly. Roy and the Colonel managed to keep the other soldiers from rushing ahead to find him.
They moved as a group and took in the damage they assumed Henry had inflicted upon Mab’s art collection. This would have driven the Fae Queen into an absolute rage.
When they came around the corner to face the stairs leading up to the second floor, they saw Green was down. Crane snapped at his people to stop as several made to run forward. They could see the specialist was frozen mid-run, but his head and the top of his shoulders had been sheared off his body. Something had cut through the soldier cleanly. Green’s frozen expression of shock looked back at them, lifeless.
“Mary, move forward, slowly,” Roy said.
She nodded to him and stepped lightly as she moved closer to the body. She was ten feet from it when she stopped and stepped back. “Something here.” She touched her neck and saw blood on her fingers. That surprised and frightened her. Eleanor moved next to her and examined her skin, but it had already resealed. The surgeon pulled a tissue from her pocket and held it out before her until she saw a thin red line of Mary’s blood appear on the tissue. She draped it over the ultra-thin wire strung up across the hall and stepped back. They couldn’t see the wire, but it held up the tissue.
Roy looked to Mick. “He hit the wire at speed, and it went right through him. If it can cut through Mary’s skin, it must be exceptionally strong and thin.
Mahati moved up to the wire and gestured with all four of her hands before it. The thread began to vibrate like a plucked guitar string. “It’s metallic and under high stress. It can be compromised with intense heat.” Her hands moved once more, and a vertical bar of white-hot light moved up the hallway. The tissue ignited, and the wire broke with a sharp ping, shredding the paper as it snapped back to its anchor points on the sides of the hallway, the wood panels splintering under the impact.
“How are you able to use your magic after you lost your glamor to the Wild Magic!” Investigator Keshellion complained.
Mahati turned to give the old Fae a haughty look. “I’m a Nāga. We are magic.”
She moved forward and launched her wire burning spell once again as they reached the stairs. Every second step had a wire at ankle height.
“I’d like to strangle Mab with these wires,” Roy growled. Crane nodded as he bent to touch Specialist Green’s head gently.
Each member of his squad paid their respects as the group proceeded up the stairs.
“STOP!”
Mahati froze and looked back at Siobhan, who was staring wide-eyed at something up the hallway.This content © 2024 NôvelDrama.Org.
“What is it?” Roy asked.
Siobhan shook her head. “I don’t know what it means, but there’s no magic in this hallway at all. It’s a big dead zone. Magic is avoiding this space.”
“It’s a sinkhole. Any being supported by magic will be incapacitated in this area. There will be focal points to draw the energy away,” Keshellion offered.
“What do the focal points look like?” Crane asked.
“Miniature glass orbs,” the Investigator explained.
Gordon nodded and stepped forward until a hand caught his sleeve. He looked back at Corporal Dulane. “Sir, I believe this is something I should be doing, not you.”
The Colonel looked at his driver and saw the serious look in his eye. He finally nodded.
The soldier moved forward into the hallway and spotted what looked like a marble stuck to the wood paneling. He used his knife to pry it loose, and the orb turned black. He glanced back and saw the pretty brunette smiling at him. She was so beautiful, and her Irish accent gave him butterflies in his stomach. He fantasized briefly about asking her out once all this craziness was over.
The fact that she could see magic told him she wasn’t human. It made him wonder if her appearance was an illusion hiding something terrifying. This made him look to the others.
Dulane saw the urgency on their faces, so he stopped wondering about the beauty and sped up his efforts, moving down one side of the hall and working his way back up the other side. Siobhan called out encouragements as she tracked how the dead zone was filling in with magic as he worked.
A deep boom shook through the castle, the sound seeming to come from above, and the chandeliers down the hall exploded, casting everyone into darkness.
“The dead zone is gone, but we now have company!” Siobhan cried as she saw the outline of beings rushing down the hall towards them. The Corporal was invisible to her.
“Dulane! Run toward my voice!” the Colonel called out.
Mick and Yablonski caught the running man before he could slam into their boss. “We’ve got you,” Mick said quietly. “Colonel, we’ve got this. We can see.”
The Silver Soldiers shot forward and quickly dealt with the troop of Goblins. With the loss of Green, they didn’t hold back their need for vengeance. The marine was particularly savage, and the last of the grey-skinned creatures died within the first ten seconds of battle. It took another ten for the soldiers to stop. The Marine took another five before Mick told him enough.
To clear a path, they kicked the bodies against the walls then shook off the gore. Luckily, nothing stuck to their new skin. Their clothes were another story. Aside from the Sergeant, they removed their soiled uniforms and left them over the bodies.
Mick had to keep her uniform as it had pockets. She rushed back to the Colonel. “Hostiles dealt with, sir.”
“I could bring out my armor,” Sigrid suggested.
“No, too bright,” Roy asserted.
Mahati created a ball of white light hovering above her, which lit up the area around them. She led them forward with Siobhan at her side, watching for strange patterns in the ambient magic.
“I-I think the castle is beginning to die,” she said hesitantly.
“It’s due to the iron piercing its foundations. It’s broken the bindings between the castle and its magic,” Keshellion remarked from the rear.
Nuru looked up at the ceiling. “Are we in danger of the castle collapsing on us?”